I am just beginning to really get grounded in solitude, so that if my life were to be on the way of ending now, this would be my one regret. Loss of the years of solitude that might be possible. Nothing else

It was said of Abba John the Dwarf that he withdrew and lived in the desert at Scetis with an old man of Thebes. His abba, taking a piece of dry wood, planted it and said to him, 'Water it every day with a bottle of water, until it bears fruit.' Now the water was so far away that he had to leave in...

A mother came here with her little child, posessed with a devil, who said to his mother, 'Get up woman, let us go away from here.' She replied, 'I cannot walk any futher,' and the little child said to her, 'I will carry you myself.' I wondered at the devil's tricks and how eager he was to make them...

A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him, 'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.

If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, will never become anything, and, in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless.